Forgotten Friends
by Lord 0f Storms
Summary: Lavellan decides to contact some of Cole's old friends, in the hopes of helping him focus on their mission. Cole turns out to be less receptive to that idea than she expected.


**Forgotten Friends**

**A/N: I was originally going to write this from Cole's perspective... but it turns out that his dialogue is hard enough to write, never mind his internal narrative!**

**...**

She woke abruptly, like a drowning woman pulled from a lake. Her head felt thick and foggy, still caught up in the sensations of the dream. It wasn't surprising, really. Dreaming with Solas wasn't the most restful activity, even when he wasn't showing her ruins and spirits.

Even with the distraction, she could sense someone in her room before she had opened her eyes. Two decades spent as a hunter had honed her senses to the point she could almost smell the nervous energy in the air. She half expected to see a skittish deer, ready to bolt.

Cracking her eye a fraction, she saw the silhouette of a human man framed against the moonlight. The tent masquerading as a hat gave the game away. She hoped he hadn't been there long. The thought of him watching her whilst she dreamed was really quite creepy.

He stood there working the sleeve of his ragged shirt in his fingers. "Cole? Something wrong?"

"There are people here. In the courtyard. Waiting."

The anxiety in his voice made her sit bolt upright, hunting for her armour and bow. "Who is it – assassins?" She recalled the altercation on the ramparts last week. "Are they here for Iron Bull? Or Josephine? Or…" It occurred to her that far too many of her allies had shadowy enemies.

Cole was wringing his hands now, apparently having heard none of that. "I didn't want them to come!" he said plaintively. "I didn't want it, but you asked them and now they're here, and they'll remember, and I'll–"

She approached warily, still thinking of a deer. "Calm down. Tell me what you're talking about." It sounded harsher than she'd intended, but she'd never been good at coddling people. There was a reason the Keeper had never pushed her to teach the apprentice hunters.

"You – you asked me if I wanted to find them, but I didn't, and you did it anyway. It saved them, so it was okay then. I thought that they would go. Be safe. Serene. Happy. Away from me, where they could forget, but you did it again. I say words and you don't hear them. Now they're here and I – I – I can't be."

Rhys and Evangeline. "They wanted to come. I told them you were here, but it was their choice to come and see you."

"No! I don't want to see. Rhys' eyes, looking at me like he knows what I am. Not kind anymore. Scared. He doesn't want to believe. He's afraid he made a mistake, and I killed all those mages because I'm a demon. Evil. Hurting people because nothing makes sense anymore and the pain is all that is real."

"_Clearly_ he changed his mind. They're waiting for you." She tried to put a hand on his shoulder, but he shrugged it off and danced out of reach.

"I can't." In an eye-blink, he disappeared. Literally. One moment, she was looking at the fretful spirit boy, the next she was staring into thin air.

"Cole!" she shouted, sounding too much like a mother scolding a wayward child.

Just perfect. This was what she got for trying to make sure her team was mentally and emotionally prepared to face Corypeheus again. She had wanted to make sure no one would go to pieces if they were dragged into the Fade again, at the mercy of a Nightmare demon or worse. Instead, she was dealing with a distraught manchild. She wondered whether she should go and find him immediately, or explain to Rhys and Evangeline.

Lavellan growled in frustration, tugging on her boot with particular vehemence.

There was a quiet knock at the door, and then Solas entered. "Thank the Creators!" she exclaimed. "I need you to go and find Cole, convince him to see Rhys. He ran off the moment he found out they were here! Why did they have to turn up in the middle of the night anyway? Bloody shems never do anything logically."

"Ah." He eyed her thoughtfully as she finished with boots. "No, I'm afraid not. You were the one who wanted to tell them of his presence, so you must be the one to speak to him. I'm still not sure this meeting was wise, and he would undoubtedly pick up on the lack of conviction in my words."

Her mouth opened and closed in soundless desperation. Finally, she managed to burst out: "But what if he wants to talk? About his _feelings_?"

"Then open your ears, and listen to him," Solas replied unhelpfully.

"Sometimes, you make about as much sense as he does." She sighed. "Will you at least see to Rhys and Evangeline."

"You want them to know the truth?"

"They might as well. It might give the game away anyway, when I drag him down there kicking and screaming."

Solas gave her a level, patient look, as though he knew she wouldn't do such a thing. What did he know about it? It wasn't as though he was overly familiar with her subconscious or anything.

...

Thankfully, finding Cole didn't prove quite as tricky as she had feared. She asked a few loitering guards whether they had seen a bedraggled human in a ridiculous hat, and they pointed her in the right direction. Only a few months ago, such a question would have been answered with confused stares. Now, people remembered Cole. Not that he couldn't still pull his old tricks, on occasion.

Lavellan had worried a great deal that she had made the wrong choice, in encouraging him to embrace the human side of his nature. It was clearly a struggle to deal with mortal emotions, and be deprived of some of the virtues of a spirit. Varric and Solas had been helping him with it, and she had believed they were making progress.

Well, progress didn't look like a boy sitting in a cupboard.

"Found you," she said flatly, eyeing him on the floor. He was sat right at the back of the cupboard, knees tucked up to his chin, and only a slither of his face visible under the hat.

"Are they gone?" he asked hopefully.

"No." She kept her voice firm. "Why are you hiding in a cupboard?"

"I hoped you wouldn't find me. I hoped they would give up and leave."

"That isn't going to happen. If you want them to go, you'll have to come and tell them."

The hat hunched down more firmly, and then she couldn't see his face at all. She sighed. Clearly that approach wasn't going to work. After a moment, she seated herself cross-legged opposite him. What had Solas said again?

"Why do you want them to forget you?" she asked, trying to make her husky voice softer and more kind. "Are you… afraid?"

"Yes."

"Of what?"

"I'm scared they'll remember me."

She frowned. He'd said that earlier, but she couldn't fathom what he meant by it. The only reason she could think of was that he'd done something so terrible that he didn't want them to remember it. That didn't add up with his story of the White Spire, Adamant, and everything that had happened. They _knew_ that he had killed mages. They had seen whatever glimpse of the original Cole's horrible past had trapped him in the Fade at Adamant. What could he possibly want them to forget? "They're your friends, aren't they? It should be good that they remember you and care enough to come here."

"They shouldn't care," he said, agitated. "It makes things more difficult. They realise what I am. All a lie. Fear and pain. What if it was our fault? A burning feeling in my chest that isn't the Litany."

"What you are?"

"A demon."

"You are you," she said firmly. "The fact that you came from the Fade doesn't change who you are as a person. It makes you spout very strange things at inopportune times, I'll admit, but that doesn't matter. They obviously don't care that you're a spirit, or demon or whatever else, otherwise they wouldn't have come to make up with you."

The hat lifted a little, and his pale, intense gaze met hers. "It doesn't matter if they care about me being a demon. I could still hurt them. You've seen the demons, you _know_. It doesn't matter about how you feel if all the demons want is pain."

Lavellan let out a burst of laughter before she could help herself, and Cole stared at her in a mixture of confusion and shock. "Oh, da'len. Since I recruited this team, I've seen Iron Bull crush a darkspawn's head with his bare hands. I've seen Vivienne immolate demons in a bonfire and Sera shoot a man clean through the throat. We're all dangerous."

"I murdered people."

"You did, and it was wrong." She wasn't entirely sure she agreed with herself on that point, especially since her own hands were hardly free of blood. However, a debate on ethics and philosophy wasn't appropriate right now. "But we have all done such things at some point. Mortals are flawed, and like it or not, you are more mortal than perhaps any other spirit around. We make bad decisions."

"So I could still hurt them," he pointed out. Despite his argumentative attitude, she noticed his posture seemed a little less hunched, more relaxed.

"So could I, so could anyone. You make the choice of whether you will or not. _Your_ choice was to help people, isn't that so?" She snorted. "You even wanted me to help One-Eyed Jack find his talking ram, or whatever that nonsense was."

"It's what I am." The corners of his mouth tugged downwards. "Or was. A spirit of compassion, Solas said. I'm supposed to help people."

"But that's not _why_ you do it."

He fidgeted with the edge of his sleeve. "I like to help people. It feels right when they're happy. Warm, soft feelings. Like a fire on a cold day. A song for a lonely soul. The Iron Bull's ale after a long day's work. Soothing, strong, serene."

"Exactly." She didn't want to ask whether he knew about that from sampling the ale himself or from inside Bull's head. A thought occurred to her. "You read Rhys' letter in that last report. Do you remember him talking of failing you? Of regret about what happened between you? _He's_ in pain right now. Helping people is what you do, and you want him to feel those warm, Qunari ale feelings, right?"

Cole's eyes went wide. "Yes. I don't want Rhys to be in pain because of me!"

"I'm sure he feels the same way about you, Cole. You deserve to be happy too. If you forgive each other, reach out to each other, you can both be happy again."

He gave her a small nod. "Yes."

Lavellan grinned, tentatively reaching out to where his hands were clasped above his knees. She squeezed his hand gently, rubbing her thumb across the skin. Her mother used to do the same whenever she fell into a patch of rashvine as a child. The irritated skin would bother her until she cried, and her mother would soothe her with that simple gesture until the salve started working.

"You care about me," Cole said thoughtfully.

Her next breath got stuck somewhere and she choked out a cough, snatching her hand back.

"You pretend that it's because you want us to work properly, but you care about us inside. You worry when we're hurt and sad." He blinked, and smiled, almost as surprised at the expression on his face as she was. "We're your comrades. Clan. Your family and friends."

This cupboard was starting to feel much too warm. She narrowed her eyes at him. "I thought you couldn't read my feelings properly because I'm too 'shiny'."

"I can't," Cole said simply.

"Creators save me, you're doing it with intuition now too?" She got to her feet and tapped the brim of his hat, causing him to look up. A rueful smile couldn't get off her face, so she gave in and let it stay there. "Come on you. Once it's done, we can go see those nugs you like in the Graves. Maybe feet them some carrots."

"Cabbage," he corrected, getting to his feet, cupboard forgotten. "They really like the cabbage. It makes them forget to be frightened, and then they let you stroke behind their ears. It's comforting."

...

When they arrived and found the courtyard empty, she feared that they had missed their opportunity. A stab of fear caught her in the gut, the thought of the kid tucking himself away in some other dark corner to lament his lost friendship. Perhaps he wasn't wrong about her at all, though she didn't care to admit it. Sentiment could get them all killed, that's why she had wanted them all to deal with it before the final battle.

Thankfully, when she opened the door to the tavern, they were waiting there.

Rhys shot to his feet awkwardly, while Evangeline stiffened in her seat. She was wearing plain armour, but had _templar_ written all over her. The rigid posture, hardened face. But after only a moment, it melted away, and she was staring at the boy with a slightly sad expression. Evangeline's eyes shone as the memories slipped back into her consciousness from wherever they had been. So Cole couldn't remove them completely, only hide them away?

Cole was staring at his feet, looking awkward and unsure of himself in the doorway. Lavellan wanted to help him, but had no idea herself on how such things should go.

Rhys' moved forward, tentative at first, but then he threw his arms around Cole, pulling the spirit boy into a warm hug. Cole folded into it immediately, seeming to become smaller. In a moment, he went from being a human man, to a young boy in a father's loving embrace.

She could hear small, snuffling sounds from under the hat – now askew and only held in place because Rhys had one hand to the back of the boy's head, holding him close. Was Cole crying? He really was becoming more and more human every day.

Evangeline got to her feet and joined them, head tilted to rest against Rhys, one arm around Cole's gently shaking shoulders. She traced soothing patterns on his back with her palm.

They looked so remarkably like a strange little family, Lavellan felt something tug in her chest. She resolutely looked elsewhere before she dissolved into some wet mess, and caught Solas' eye.

The mage joined her, a slightly satisfied smile on his face.

"Still having second thoughts about this reunion?" she asked.

"No." He regarded Cole with a fond smile. "It seems to be exactly what he needed."

She smiled, still feeling that ridiculous, warm feeling floating through her. It was strangely intoxicating, and she wondered if this was what he had meant about the ale.

The elves slipped quietly from the room, leaving the family to their reunion.

...


End file.
